“I said, wenches to the back!” the man shouted, as Cora and Circe moved to their men’s sides.

Tor’s gaze shifted back to the keep to see, within seconds, he’d shot from unfriendly to dangerously hostile.

Tor further felt his wife’s bemusement, her mood matching his.

He also sensed attention coming their way from their right, opposite where the inn’s reception was.

This being where the tables and bar of the pub were.

Tor looked that way.

Yes.

They had the attention of the entirety of the pub.

All of the patrons being men.

“You can send them to the back or you can get your lunch elsewhere,” the man warned.

Tor looked again at the innkeeper. “Send who to the back?”

“What’s the matter with you?” the man queried in return.

“Not a thing,” Tor answered.

The keep gave him a look up and down and demanded, “You Airenzian?”

“I’m Valerian,” Tor shared, deciding not to share he was the Valerian, that being that country’s king.

The man reared back, making an “oof” of surprise.

“Long way away for you,” he stated something Tor did not need reminding of as this was the first time his boots had hit solid ground since they left Korwahk weeks ago.

“Yes,” he agreed unnecessarily.

“How’d you make it through those bloody Mar-el pirates?” he asked.

Tor had no wish to enter into a discussion with him, so he simply said, “Luck.”

“Best know our ways, Valerian,” the man instructed. “Your women, if they travel with you, they enter at the back. They go straight to their rooms. And they stay there.”

“No.”

Oh shite.

That came from Lahn.

The innkeeper’s face went hard.

“Lahn, let’s go somewhere else,” Tor suggested.

“Won’t matter where you go, ’less you find one of them agitator’s places that’ll let you in,” the innkeeper advised. “Got our women locked down. We feel the cold winds blowin’. Not gon’ let some Nadirii put ideas in their heads.”

As they all processed this information, most of which none of them understood, some of it they didn’t want to understand, the innkeeper, and it would seem some patrons, became impatient.

There was shifting.

Tor went alert.

Lahn didn’t twitch.

“Best go, Valerian, and get your women outta here or they’ll be removed and so will you,” the keep warned.

“A man touches my queen, I’ll tear his arms from his body,” Lahn declared.

Fuck.

The feel of the room worsened.

Significantly.

“Lahn,” Tor said.

“Let’s just go, baby,” Circe urged quietly.

Unfortunately, one of the patrons was positioning either to better watch the byplay, or to do something about it.

And his positioning took him closer to Circe, something she noted.

“I’d back off if I were you,” Circe advised him.